Among the most memorable innovations of music and poetry in thirteenth-century France was a genre that seemed to privilege sound over sense. The polytextual motet is especially …
The innovative work in design, typography, and content of music printer and publisher Ottaviano Petrucci (1446 - 1539) became the standard by which all following printers measured …
The Divine Office--or, the cycle of daily worship services other than the Mass--constitutes the most important body of liturgical texts and music for medieval studies. It is a …
In the Middle Ages, relic cults provoked rich expressions of devotion not only in hagiographic literature and visual art but also in liturgical music and ritual. Despite the …
English comedy from the fifteenth to the early seventeenth century abounds in song lyrics, but most of the original tunes were thought to have been lost—until now. By deducing that …
Throughout early modern Europe, patronage became a means for the dominant classes to highlight their wealth, intellectual finesse, and cultural and political agendas, particularly …
Examining the roots of the classical fugue and the early history of non-canonic fugal writing, Paul Walker's Fugue in the Sixteenth Century explores the three principal fugal …
Ephemeral, fragile, often left unbound, sixteenth-century songbooks led fleeting lives in the pockets of singers and on the music desks of instrumentalists. Constantly in action, …
In the late 15th century the newly built Sistine Chapel was home to a vigorous culture of musical composition and performance. Josquin des Prez stood at its center, singing and …
The foremost composer under the reign of Elizabeth I and James I, William Byrd (c. 1540 - 1623) produced countless masses, motets, polyphonic songs, and works for keyboard and …
